In democratic countries, governmental officials are chosen by the citizens in an election. Conducting an election and voting for candidates for public office in the United States can be performed in several different ways. One such way utilizes mechanical voting machines at predetermined polling places. When potential voters enter the predetermined polling place, voting personnel verify that each voter is properly registered in that voting district and that they have not already voted in that election. Thus, for a voter to cast his vote, he must go to the polling place at which he is registered, based on the voter's residence. Another method for conducting an election and voting utilizes paper ballots that are mailed to the voter. The voter marks the ballot and returns the ballot through the mail. Mailed ballots have been historically reserved for absentee voting. In the usual absentee voting process, the voter marks the ballot to cast his/her vote and then inserts the ballot in a return envelope which is typically pre-addressed to the voter registrar office in the corresponding county, town or locality in which the voter is registered. The voter typically appends his/her signature on the back of the envelope adjacent to his/her human or machine readable identification.
When the return envelope is received at the registrar's office, a voting official compares the voter signature on the envelope with the voter signature retrieved from the registration file to make a determination as to whether or not the identification information and signature are authentic and valid, and therefore the vote included in the envelope should be counted. If the identification information and signature are deemed to be authentic and valid, the identifying information and signature are separated from the sealed ballot before it is handed to the ballot counters for tabulation. In this manner, the privacy of the voter's selections is maintained and thus the ballot remains a “secret ballot.”
One general problem with vote by mail envelopes is the signature is in the open and exposed for all to see throughout the process for determining whether or not the vote is authentic. This leads to potential privacy issues and concerns, e.g., fraudulent usage of a voter's signature. Some jurisdictions have required that such signatures be hidden from plain sight while the envelope is en route from the voter to the registrar's office. This will protect against easy imaging of the signature, such as, for example, with a hand scanner or digital camera, for later impersonation or other fraudulent purposes, e.g., identity theft. To comply with such requirements, envelopes have been proposed that hide the signature with a flap which is removed when the envelope is received at the registrar's office. These solutions, however, require some mechanical manipulation of the envelopes, which is both expensive and increases the risk of accidental tears of the envelope, potentially leading to damage to the ballots contained in the envelopes, exposing the marked ballot before the conclusion of the authentication process (which in some states require the ballot to be counted, regardless of the outcome of the authentication process), or leading to the ability to link the voter with his/her ballot, thereby removing the secret ballot.
Voting by mail is becoming more prevalent, apart from the usual absentee voting, and in some jurisdictions, entire elections are being conducted exclusively by mail. As voting by mail becomes more prevalent, the privacy concerns discussed above are also more prevalent. Thus, there exists a need for efficient methods and systems that can protect the privacy of signatures on ballots sent through the mail while also reducing the risk of damage to the ballots when the signatures are revealed.